Diabetic foot infections are a serious threat which cause a long term of hospitalization of diabetes patients and lead to amputations. Hence, prompt diagnosis is an important criterion in the treatment of these infections. This study was carried out to determine the prevalence of yeast in diabetic foot infections. The pus samples were collected from patients presenting with diabetic foot ulcer and processed for microbiological investigation. The patients investigated comprised of 82 males and 78 females. Most of the patients were grade I ulcers followed by grade II ulcers. Out of 160 samples, 138 samples were culture positive, in which yeast isolate Candida glabrata was the predominant isolate followed by Candida albicans, Candida dubliniensis, Candida krusei and Candida tropicalis. C. albicans and C. dubliniensis were differentiated by using tobacco agar due to the presence of hyphal fringes. The methylene blue sabouraud dextrose agar and corn meal agar were also used to differentiate C. albicans from non albicans. The antifungal susceptibility pattern showed 29 % of C. albicans was sensitive to Amphotericin B and Clotrimazole, while 75 % of C. glabrata was sensitive to Amphotericin B, Ketoconazole and Itraconazole. C. dublinensis and C. albicans showed the highest percentage of resistant to Ketoconazole, Fluconazole, Nystatin and Itraconazole. Thus, the results indicating that effective alternate drug of choice are required and the proper selection of antifungal agents will play an important role for the treatment of fungal foot infections. This study will also add substantial knowledge of yeast as one of the pathogenic organisms in diabetic foot infections.
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